Defending Country has tracked the development of this important website, most recently earlier this month. The website is tracking down instances of First Nations resistance to settler-invader (including military) attacks across Australia. This is particularly important because of the undertakings of recently re-elected War Memorial Council Chair, Kim Beazley, to give First Nations people 'the dignity of resistance' in the way the Memorial (eventually) depicts the Australian Wars.
As an example of how the website can be used, we clicked on 'Perth' on the interactive map and came up with 'Noongar war and resistance'. Further down, there was a link to an ABC/iview documentary about warrior Yagan, then extensive notes from primary and secondary sources about resistance in the Swan Valley, Swan River Colony, Galup and Lake Monger, York, Busselton and other locations. Here is an 1897 report of an event at Lake Minninup in 1841, after a Noongar man had killed a farmer:
In 1897 the historian Warren Bert Kimberly wrote up this event as a massacre which took place at Lake Minninup near Wonnerup as 'one of the most bloodthirsty deeds ever committed by Englishmen'...'Although several natives were killed the settlers and soldiers were not satisfied. They redoubled their energy, determined to wreak vengeance on the main body. They rode from district to district, from hill to hill, and searched the bush and thickets. At last they traced the terrified fugitives to Lake Mininup. Here and there a native was killed, and the others seeing that their hiding place was discovered fled before the determined force. They rushed to a sand patch beyond Lake Mininup. Colonel Molloy observed a boy forsaken by his parents. He rode up to him, and to save him took him on his saddle. The lad, whose name was Burnin, survived, and lived in the district until a short time ago. The soldiers and settlers pushed on, and surrounded the black men on the sand patch. There was now no escape for the fugitives, and their vacuous cries of terror mingled with the reports of the white men's guns. Native after native was shot, and the survivors, knowing that orders had been given not to shoot the women, crouched on their knees, covered their bodies with their bokas, and cried, "Me yokah" (woman). The white men had no mercy. The black men were killed by dozens, and their corpses lined the route of march of the avengers. Then the latter went back satisfied.
The website is a collaborative effort to map and provide information about Australian Wars and Resistance. It will be updated and expanded based on previous and ongoing research. Defending Country will regularly reproduce material from the site. Congratulations to those involved, particularly Dr Bill Pascoe.
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